All Doctor Dire wants to do is save the world. But those pesky heroes keep getting in the way, and it's all she can do to give them a good fight without killing them. Supervillainy is such an underappreciated job these days....

Meet Threadbare. He is 12 inches tall, full of fluff, and really, really bad at being a hero. Magically animated and discarded by his maker as a failed experiment, he is saved by a little girl. But she's got problems of her own, and he might not be able to help her. Fortunately for the little golem, he's quick to find allies, learn skills, gain levels, and survive horrible predicaments. Which is good, because his creator has a whole lot of enemies …

Arthur lives with his father, a fallen but proud former noble, in Border Village #49, along with the other good folks condemned to toil in service to the Baron. But Arthur has an edge: a stolen heart card that secretly fell into his possession, thanks to a dragon. It’s a priceless source of power for the Baron and the tyrant will kill to get it back. Invaluable, too, to a young man of spellcasting ambitions.

Wynne might have been human once. It's hard to say. Now he's a bunker core, a nanomachine controller responsible for an entire complex. Of course, the place is a bit wrecked. And the world outside is in ruins. And he's pretty sure that whoever put him here is going to come looking for him at some point....

A teenage mage of humble birth and slightly above-average skill, Zorian is attending his third year of education at Cyoria's magical academy. A driven and quiet young man, he is consumed by a desire to ensure his own future and free himself of the influence of his family, resenting the Kazinskis for favoring his brothers over him. Consequently, Zorian has no time for pointless distractions, much less other people's problems.

Arden was left in the village by a dying mage, who never returned. With no way out of the village on his own, he had always held onto the hope that one day his magic would awaken and give him access to his spheres. But he’s about to turn eighteen and it’s never come. Instead, he’s settled into his lot as a sarcastic and quick-witted innkeeper. That all changes one night when his old flame, who escaped the village to become a mage’s anchor, returns. Ard’s life is about to go through some dramatic changes, and he’s not ready for them.

Being a superhero should be fun. After all, a world of super powers is a world where Amazonian juggernauts made of candy battle guys in spandex that drive talking cars. Irene loves that weirdness, loves the game of fighting, and loves being a four-foot-tall woman who still gets to drop big heavy objects on villains' heads. In 1980, that fun is in danger. A mad scientist who murders people for his research has everyone afraid. Two of the friendliest super-powered rivals around stop playing and go for the kill.

Fight, survive, adapt, and rely only on yourself. That is Derek’s creed and what's got him through the System Integration on Earth. Everything changed when the System came. Cute bunnies and beautiful butterflies became savage killing machines. Then the Invaders arrived with a single goal: to obtain ownership of this new habitable planet. War has raged ever since. None of this mattered much to Derek, aside from making living a little more perilous.

Gifted with meta-human powers, Tori Rivas kept away from the limelight, preferring to work as a thief in the shadows. But when she's captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she's offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated. Apprenticed to one of the world's most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she is thrust into a strange world where the lines that divide superheroes and criminals are more complex than they seem.

After his parents died, Alex Roth had one desire: become a wizard. Through hard work, he was accepted into the University of Generasi, the world’s greatest academy of wizardry.... Fate, however, had another plan. On his 18th birthday, he is Marked by prophecy as one of his kingdom’s five Heroes, chosen to fight the Ravener, his land’s great enemy. But his brand is "The Fool". Worst of the marks.

Ryan "Quicksave" Romano is an eccentric adventurer with a strange power: he can create a save-point in time and redo his life whenever he dies. Arriving in New Rome, the glitzy capital of sin of a rebuilding Europe, he finds the city torn between mega-corporations, sponsored heroes, super-powered criminals, and true monsters. It's a time of chaos, where potions can grant the power to rule the world and dangers lurk everywhere.

Callum had seen things all his life. There are monsters and beasts living among people, but he learned very early not to admit such things, not if he didn’t want people to think him crazy. It turns out that the supernatural is real, but at 30, Callum has no desire to be part of that secret. Not that he has a choice when it turns out he is a mage, albeit one that hasn’t cast any spells in all his life. There are requirements, duties, and education that the powers that be insist he be subject to. To hell with that.

It’s not easy making the career jump from office-supplies-store middle manager to heroic interdimensional adventurer. At least, Jason tries to be heroic, but it's hard to be good when all your powers are evil. He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters...and that’s just on the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit, and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants.

When a salvage job on an old battlefield goes awry, Kril's left with no crew, no food, a suspiciously absent client, and far too many enemies. Fortunately, it's a big universe, and he's got a fast ship and the best pilot in twenty light-years to watch his back. His journey to keep 'er flying and get a crew back together will take him from rescue operations in collapsing freighters to fighting dinosaurs in the sewage canals of pirate paradises and to points beyond. The odds are stacked against him, but Kril keeps it simple.

Casting necromancy without ever learning how to isn't supposed to be possible. A starving orphan girl named Vita is somehow managing it anyway, and she's not sure if this is going to be the solution to her life's problems or a horrifying, spiraling mess of problems she can hardly conceive.